Matt D

Women's match from tonight was really quite good for a nine minute attraction match. Plus, Boesch calling a tapatia made my night.

The problem here is that most wrestlers simply aren't good enough to create something that can realistically mimick the drama of real sports/fights, let alone create something really impressive artistically. Thankfully, Johnny Sorrow and myself are imaginative enough to fill in the gaps for everyone else.

I (again) wish they differentiated things with women's tag titles on SD and Six man tag titles on Raw (perfect for New Day and killing time), and putting a 10-minute time limit on the IC belt to make it a TV title except for on PPVs (Miz would be great for that). Just anything but needless repetition. If they knew this would be a potential issue weeks ago, they should have let Ziggler into the match and done a round robin tournament with Styles, Ziggler, Ambrose tonight. I'm just full of unsolicited backseat ideas.

Wrestling isn't a sport. It shouldn't be classified as a sport. It's way better than sports. People shouldn't compare the two or feel inadequate for whatever reason or overly laud real life toughness as a positive attribute except for in how it assists in artistic presentation. Not in 2016 at least.

We would have had one liners if he won and we would have one-liners if he lost.

I actually really liked Bugsy vs Lewin. Very effective stuff. It's no blip. Lewin was definitely way more over than Dusty in Houston, at least on that night. Same crowd. Same audio. It gives us a sense of how much Dusty was NOT over, actually. It wasn't just the way the mic-ing was that night. I like Lewin so much more as a babyface than a heel and McGraw played his role well. This was 13 minutes and angle-centric, but it was all really solid.

I mean he did sort of achieve the american dream (give or take a lawsuit): "If you work hard enough, you can be as big an asshole as you want without repercussions." Good for him on that.

I'd be happy for Tito Santana if he wanted to start an unlikely new career, let me tell you that.

Hopefully the guy's mid-life crisis is over and he can start transitioning his fame and personal beliefs into youth drug prevention programs or something.

I'd be amused if Netflix's biggest issue was that new shows dried up temporarily because it's CEO had to go be a heel in Japan.

The main issue is that Punk is a hugely unlikable ass. Why are people dancing around that and talking about gym time and stuff like that? He's sort of OUR hugely unlikable ass, but that only takes him so far.

No, this is a lot of fun to read; maybe my favorite PWO thing since GWE ended.

I was going to say...

They should drop the cash to have Living Colour play Cult of Personality for Baron Corbin on the way to the ring for whatever pre-match show match he's in tomorrow. That's what I'd do if I was Vince at least.

The fun thing about this is that Punk is still a better pro wrestler than Brock Lesnar.

I like Punk more now that he looks more like Paul Boesch.

Maybe someone could convince him that it was the key to Howie Mandel's success.

I applaud your gumption.

Even that had Dusty putting a chinlock on instead of letting Gino stooge around for him. It was weird.

Maybe he helped bridge the gap to JYD though. All I know is that they really worked to hell out of that sleeper and it didn't seem to be working.

I don't know. Andre's a special attraction and he's always over in Houston. Likewise, Dusty is a special attraction elsewhere (like MSG) and he feels more over there. It's not just this match but other times we've seen Dusty.

Pete, We've seen a lot of Houston matches from this era now. Is it just me or is the crowd just not all that into Dusty? I think, even in this match, Lewin was way more over than him.

Dusty vs Gino So far as I know, this is the only match up between these two that we have. I think they had good chemistry. I would have liked a bit more of a shine with a bit more of Gino showing ass, but he gives a lot for Dusty to work with in the heat, even though it's primarily them working hope spots out of a sleeper. It's one of the best sleeper sequences you'll see. I'd be curious if someone can name a better. For some reason the crowd always seems underwhelming for Dusty in Houston, despite Boesch telling me otherwise. Gino was the guy who had to draw week in and week out in Houston, and they made him look strong and effective. Solid match with a lot of exactly what you would want from Dusty and Gino but maybe not quite enough for it (And all of in as a backdrop for Gino vs Lewin). I didn't like it as much as Dusty vs Patera, but it's still a great piece of history with two guys doing what they did best.

I'm not going to do a full write up. I really need to see it again. Where it clicked for me utterly was when I switched to the fancam footage. From there, I started over and was hugely engaged. I sync'd together the footage in the third fall as I watched, splitting my screen and it was one of the most immersive wrestling experiences I've had in a long time. It really was an experience and I'd like to go back again and map out more of a narrative. Talk about earned exhaustive selling though. The chair segment and the wrecked bodies it left behind is one of the best examples of how a single spot or sequence can just change everything. Truly amazing finish. I need to see it again.

Forget the bell: Would Brock vs Reigns be better if the chase/payoff to Rollins/Reigns had been better months down the line?